No sign Stanford’s lavish St Croix assets frozen
Millions of dollars of Allen Stanford’s assets on St. Croix remained unfrozen on Monday, even after a court-appointed receiver was said to have arrived on the Caribbean island.
U.S. regulators have not seized any of Stanford’s St. Croix assets, which include a 120-foot yacht called the Sea Eagle Bikini and a $7.7 million mansion in Christiansted, St. Croix’s largest city, according to James Sullivan, the U.S. Marshal for the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“We know who owns the boat and home. If they (regulators) ask us to seize it, we will,” Sullivan said. “As of today, we have no indications that they’ll ask us … I don’t know if they want us to or don’t want us to.”
A spokesman for the governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands said he had heard that the receiver — the court-appointed attorney overseeing Stanford Financial’s affairs and assets — had arrived on St. Croix on Friday and met with Stanford employees, but he could not independently verify it.
“We’re hearing dribs and drabs,” said spokesman Jean Greaux, adding that the receiver had “no compelling reason” to inform the government. Dallas lawyer Ralph Janvey was appointed receiver by the U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas.
An email sent to the receiver and a call to Stanford Financial’s St. Croix office were unanswered on Monday.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week charged Stanford, 58, with fraudulently selling $8 billion in certificates of deposit with improbably high interest rates from his Stanford International Bank Ltd (SIB), headquartered in Antigua guaranteed unsecured personal loans. Regulators in Antigua have seized Stanford’s banks and companies there.
He faces SEC charges but no criminal charges.
Stanford has several offices and residences on St. Croix, the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
At one point, Stanford had about 80 local employees but has laid off at least 18, Greaux said. The governor’s spokesman said the layoffs were not necessarily related to the federal probe.
“That was before the receiver stepped in,” Greaux said.
The Texas billionaire is current on his rent payments for 37 acres of land near St. Croix’s airport he is leasing from the U.S. Virgin Islands Port Authority, according to the authority’s spokeswoman.
The lease, which started in February 2007, is for 50 years at a rate of $805,462.50 per year, said spokeswoman Monifa Morero. Aside from paying a three-month security deposit totaling $201,365.63, Stanford also promised to spend at least $5 million to develop the property, she said.
Stanford Financial planned to build a massive office complex on the land, intended to serve as headquarters for support functions for its financial empire.
Construction on the site had been in the first stage of installing sewage and water lines, but now it is “at a standstill,” Morero said. “We are all hoping for the best.”
Filed under: legal by TheDoor